ART-1207 The Life of Swami Vivekananda (1863 – 1902)
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Swami Vivekananda, possibly the most masterful personality of modern India “came, saw and conquered”. He lit the torch of resurgent Hinduism, particularly the Vedanta philosophy, in far-off America. He preached the gospel of his guru, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, throughout India and the world, reviving the faith of mankind in religion. With his superb oratorical flair, he advocated the spread of “man-making” education and was an untiring crusader of purity of life and character. He founded the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, perhaps the most widespread voluntary non-official socio-religious organisation in the world.
The Early Days
Swami Vivekananda (formerly known as Naren) was born in Calcutta and as a youngster was bright and full of energy. Naren focussed tremendous amounts of energy towards his studies and sports. He was a born leader and was blessed with a prodigious memory and could easily retain everything he read. As he grew older, he excelled at his studies and amazed his teachers, mastering Philosophy (both Western and Eastern), History and Sanskrit.
However beneath his intellectual hunger and his athletic enthusiasm lay his spiritual call, which beckoned to him day and night. The spiritual call took the form of a natural meditativenss of the mind and a constant inwardness in the midst of all activities. As a student he lived an apparently carefree life with his friends, but at home he lived the life of a strict brahmachari (a spiritual aspirant devoted to continence and other spiritual practices), sleeping on the floor, eating vegetarian food, and spending much time in prayer and meditation.
“Have you seen God?”
Whilst in his teens, the spiritual call led him to several famous religious leaders in Calcutta where, each time, he would ask them if they had seen God. No one could give him a direct and positive answer until he cam to the Kali temple at Dakshineshwar, north of Calcutta. It was there in 1881 that he met Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Being asked the very same question Sri Ramakrishna’s response was:
“Yes, I see him just as I see you here, only in a more intense way, and if you wish, you too can see him”.
Naren had immediately found his Guru.
The relationship between Sri Ramakrishna and Naren is itself a fascinating story. In those two souls, the new India was meeting the old India with its ancient traditions and spirituality. Naren came with modern Western education and the scepticism it breeds, while to Sri Ramakrishna the English were strange folk. Naren would accept nothing, even from a great soul like Sri Ramakrishna, without putting it to the test of reason. Sri Ramakrishna, rather than being annoyed, encouraged his great disciple in his uncompromising pursuit of truth and rejection of superstition, for he saw that it sprang from utter sincerity and strength of mind, not from the common weakness which causes one to argue just for arguments sake because of an inability to live up to convictions.
The Guru’s Teachings
During his five years with Sri Ramakrishna, Naren underwent a very strict spiritual apprenticeship. He practised a variety of disciplines and had a wealth of experiences including nirvikalpa samadhi; the very rare culmination of spiritual life in which the individual is completely erased and one knows oneself as the one, infinite, undivided, transcendental reality, Brahman, or Paramatman.
Besides his vast treasury of direct spiritual experience, Naren also learnt from Sri Ramakrishna many teachings that were to form the core of his message to the world. He learnt that all religions are true and that they are just different paths leading to the same goal of God realisation, taught to different people according to the needs of the time and the culture. He learnt to speak to individual people in their own language, giving them a push according to their own individual growth. He learnt that one should not stand on a pedestal and feel compassion for suffering beings, but should serve and thereby worship individual beings as Shiva himself. Ramakrishna taught him that it was a sin to teach a hungry person religion, first give him food then talk to him of God.
Shortly before he passed away, Sri Ramakrishna called Naren to his bedside and with a touch transferred to his greatest disciple the wealth of his own spiritual realisation and the power acquired thorough his superhuman tapasya (austerities).
The Cycle of Work
Naren then spent two years travelling all over India meditating, studying and observing first hand her culture and social problems. He saw the great poverty of India and pondered deeply the role of religion and the suffering of the masses. He impressed great kings with his wisdom and through his wanderings developed an understanding of the real meaning of religion. During this time, the name Swami Vivekananda was given.
During the course of his deep and long meditation it was revealed to him how to bring back India’s lost spiritual glory. The Sanyasins of the country, who had been supported for ages by society, which allowed them to pursue a life of exclusive meditation and study, should now render service back to the world, not for humanistic reasons nor as social workers, but by being inspired with the awareness of the divinity of all beings. This would be a new grand path to self-realisation, which would not compromise the Sanyasis single pointed dedication to spirituality, but would use that dedication for the benefit of all beings.
The World Parliament of Religions
In 1893 Swami Vivekananda was persuaded by his disciples to be a representative at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In a vision he saw Sri Ramakrishna beckoning him across the waters of the ocean. When he arrived in America he discovered that not only had he come too early, but that he lacked proper papers to be a delegate. The authorities wouldn’t recognise him, but providence had its ways. He came to meet a Professor J.H Wright, of the Greek department at Harvard University. They talked for hours. The professor was so impressed that he insisted his new friend should be the representative of Hinduism at the parliament.
On hearing that the Swami lacked proper credentials, he replied, “to ask you, Swami for your credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine”. The professor wrote a letter to a friend in charge of selecting the delegates saying “Here is a man who is more learned than all our learned professors put together”.
On September 11, 1893 Swami Vivekananda attended the Parliament as a delegate to speak. Feeling nervous he passed on the first chance to speak. Finally, he spoke in words that became famous throughout the world:
“Sisters and brother of America. It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome that you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world. I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. I am proud to belong to a religion which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations on the earth”.
At the Parliament of Religions he was by far the most popular speaker, and afterwards was asked to continue teaching in the United States. He acceded, thinking he could raise some money to begin his work in India, as he had conceived of it. Soon however, he saw another reason for teaching in America – the great spiritual need of the people. If India needed bread, Western lands needed spirituality.
In 1897 he returned to India and began in earnest the work there. He organised and directed the monastic order known as the Ramakrishna Math, with its service wing known as the Ramakrishna Mission, and purchased land for its headquarters at Belur near Calcutta. He gathered disciples and began their training.
The Final Days
On July 4, 1902, Swami Vivekananda lay down on his bed, entered deep meditation and passed into mahasamadhi in the prime of his life, at the age of thirty-nine. He had once said “It may be that I shall find it good to get outside my body – to cast it off like a worn out garment. But I shall not cease to work. I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God”. Swami Vivekananda was probably one of the greatest proponents of Vedic scriptures both in India and abroad. People who were privileged to hear him speak in America remembered him with fondness and reverence almost fifty years later. Although he only lived for thirty-nine years, his work continues to be an inspiration to individuals around the world.